In order to provide bidirectional digital data communication over a cable TV coaxial network to multiple subscribers with multiple services available over a single coax cable (hereafter called interactive systems), several problems have to be solved. First, there is the problem of noise and interference. A second major problem, but related to the first problem, is synchronization of data transmission so that effective, error-free communication can be achieved. Cable networks typically involve a so called head end or central unit from which video is transmitted to subscribers coupled to one or more main trunk lines from which extend numerous branch lines which may enter subscriber homes or which may couple to other branch lines. At each junction of a branch line to the trunk line or another branch line there is a directional coupler which is intended to direct transmissions from the head end to the subscribers in one direction and to direct transmissions from the subscribers back to the head end without leaking energy intended for transmission to the head end into branch lines coupled to other subscribers. In order to send digital data over video coax, a modem is necessary at both the head end and at all the subscriber locations to modulate digital data onto the coax as RF signals, and to receive RF signals carrying digital data and derive the digital data therefrom. Because RF signals are propagating along the cables, and because the couplers are not perfect, reflections occur at the directional couplers that cause noise and interference. This is because the reflections are frequently of the opposite polarity depending upon the impedance mismatch and the distances involved. These reflections are therefore sometimes additive and sometimes subtractive, thereby resulting in random variations in the amplitudes of the RF signals. These random variations make discrimination during the demodulation process to derive the digital data more difficult.
Further, because the subscribers are at physically different distances from the head end, the signals from each subscriber's modem arrive at the head end at different times because of different propagation delays. Because digital data is transmitted in frames and because all subscribers must be synchronized to the same frame timing, these different propagation delays for each subscriber cause problems in synchronizing data.
In the typical interactive system, there are bidirectional amplifiers. Each amplifier has two channels, one of which amplifies signals in a high frequency range from 45-750 mHz for transmission of data from the head end to subscribers, and the other of which amplifies signals in a low frequency range from 5-42 mHz for transmission of data from the subscribers to the head end. When the operating frequency is close to the edges of either the high or low band, group delay distortion can result in another impairment to noise free bidirectional communication.
Other forms of linear impairment result from the fact that the bandpass filters in the system do not have perfectly flat amplitude characteristics for their transfer functions across the entire passband, especially at the corner frequencies.
Other forms of impairments are so-called additive impairments resulting from taps on the system which are not properly terminated. These taps act as antennas and pick up broadcast signals from FM stations, CB radios, HF communication etc. Other sources of noise are impulse signals resulting from arcing in electrical appliances near taps. Arcing generates white noise type RF energy that is splattered across all bands and is radiated much like lightening. In addition, the amplifiers in the interactive system can sometimes break into oscillation thereby creating noise. Further the horizontal and vertical oscillators in television sets in the subscriber's household also can radiate RF interference signals. These sources of interference are a major contributor to noise in the system.
The collection of impairments described above are referred to as linear impairments because the system has a linear transfer function so that in the Fourier domain, all the impairment effects are additive.
In addition to the linear impairments, there also exist nonlinear impairments such as second and third order harmonics generated by the nonlinear junctions of transistors in the amplifiers in the system. When multiple sinusoidal signals arrive at the amplifiers, beat frequencies are generated in addition to the harmonics of the arriving signals because the nonlinear junctions act like mixers.
Other forms of nonlinear impairment are hum from saturation of magnetic cores of transformers in the amplifiers resulting from 60 volt, 60 Hertz AC square wave pulses sent to the amplifiers over the coax to supply the amplifiers with power. The amplifiers have rectifiers that rectify this square wave signal to derive power therefrom and this process generates noise in the form of hum. This hum is caused by amplitude modulation of the power supply signal resulting from the placement of the operating point on the hysteresis curve of the rectifier transformers.
Interactive systems typically involve in excess of one hundred different channels on which separate digital data streams can flow in addition to the separate channels on which the video signals are provided for normal cable TV service. To send digital data as RF signals, very complex constellations of separate amplitude and phase combinations are used to encode the digital characters being transmitted. Because of the large number of data points, the differences in phase and amplitude between the different points are not large. Therefore, the impairments described above can cause errors by causing misinterpretation by demodulators of what characters were actually sent.
There is only one conductive path between the head end and the subscribers that must be shared by all the subscribers to send and receive digital data. One approach that has been tried in prior art interactive cable TV systems is time division multiple access sharing (TDMA) with quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation schemes. In a TDMA system, each subscriber gets a short assigned time slot in which to transmit data to the head end. The TDMA approach has shortcomings in that it causes difficulty and complexity in achieving "alignment". Alignment refers to the proper timing of each subscriber's transmissions so that they arrive during the appropriate time slot at the head end despite the fact that the signals from each subscriber have different propagation times. Alignment in TDMA multiple access schemes is critical, and achieving it is difficult.
Another difficulty with the TDMA approach is the high susceptibility of QPSK modulation to narrowband interference. Narrowband interference results when a signal like Voice of America or a harmonic which has a bandwidth similar to the bandwidth of the channels upon which digital data is being transmitted enters the transmission media. Typically this happens at a tap which is not properly terminated. Narrowband interference adversely affects the receiver circuits and the alignment circuits that achieve synchronization of all the sources.
The use of TDMA schemes also complicates the alignment problem in the presence of narrowband interference and other noise because there is such a short time for synchronization. Synchronization of the head end to all the subscribers is necessary so that the clock signal and other reference signals such as the carrier can be recovered from the transmitted signals without being separately transmitted. These recovered signals are critical to proper operation of the system in demodulating the transmitted data. Narrowband interference also adversely affects the decision making circuits that decipher which characters have been transmitted thereby increasing the error rate. Increased error rate requires more bandwidth to be consumed in retransmitting data and wastes processing power in detecting and correcting errors and retransmitting data with errors that are beyond the correction range of the ECC bits transmitted with the data.
Also, because in TDMA schemes the timeslots are very short, TDMA systems are susceptible to loss of data caused by long bursts of noise. Typical bursts of impulse noise are quite long relative to the length of the TDMA timeslots. Long bursts often wipe out entire groups of timeslots thereby requiring retransmission of all the data in these timeslots. Modulation and multiple access schemes that spread out the energy of transmitted data over longer times, such as FDMA schemes, are less susceptible to this type of burst noise. However, FDMA schemes have other drawbacks.
QPSK modulation used in TDMA schemes is also not the most efficient modulation scheme in terms of spectral efficiency, i.e., speed of transmission in bits/second/Hertz over a given bandwidth. However, QPSK modulation is used because it has a sufficiently large distance between points in the constellation to maintain relatively good noise immunity. Noise immunity refers to the ability of a system to achieve a certain bit error rate that is deemed to be tolerable for a given signal to noise ratio. If the signal to noise ratio decreases for a given noise immunity characteristic, the bit error rate will rise.
Typically, channel bandwidths are 6 mHz, and spectral efficiency of 27 megabits/second/Hertz is desired. Therefore, a data transfer rate of 162.times.10.sup.12 is achievable over one channel at this typical spectral efficiency and bandwidth. However spectral efficiency for QPSK modulation is on the order of 1 bits/second/Hertz or less so this modulation scheme is too slow for high traffic volume applications such as video on demand, video teleconferencing etc.
Another approach that has been tried in the prior art is frequency division multiple access (FDMA). In FDMA, each subscriber transmits data on a different carrier frequency as opposed to at a different time in TDMA. FDMA schemes suffer from different drawbacks than TDMA schemes. Because there are multiple carriers in FDMA schemes, there are more intermodulation products in the received signals. These intermodulation products can coherently add to each other thereby causing peaks in amplitude which are far greater than the average signal. This causes difficulty in designing analog circuits with adequate ranges of linearity to handle these signals without clipping the peaks. These peaks often penetrate into the nonlinear or saturation range of operation of analog circuits in the system exposed to these signals thereby introducing nonlinearities. Even without these nonlinearities, the intermodulation components tend to cause crosstalk between adjacent channels which increases the error rate.
FDMA schemes are also sensitive to narrowband interference signals that suddenly appear causing unanticipated "jamming" of one or more channels thereby causing long bursts of errors. FDMA channels are narrow, and claims have been made that because of this fact narrowband interference can be avoided. However, narrowband interference is dynamic, because there are multiple sources thereof at different frequencies. As a result, narrowband interference signals can suddenly "pop up" when a subscriber turns on his or her TV or when Voice of America starts broadcasting. This sudden pop-up interference can jam a channel thereby causing error bursts.
Therefore, a need has arisen for a method and apparatus that can support interactive digital systems that eliminates some of these drawbacks.